Bela Lugosi

Bela Lugosi (20 October 1882-16 August 1956) was a Hungarian-American actor. He was famous for his horror movie roles, and he was also known as a communist exile from Hungary and a possible Communist Party USA member.

Biography
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó was born in Lugos, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) in 1882, and he changed his surname to "Lugosi" in 1903 to honor his hometown. From 1914 to 1916, Lugosi served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, and he was wounded on the Russian front. He was a stage actor before making his first film in 1917, but he was forced to flee his country after taking part in the failed 1919 communist revolution as an actors' union activist. He was smuggled out of the country under a bale of hay in the back of a cart, and he had roles in several German films before arriving in the United States as a seaman on a merchant ship. In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, and he later appeared in the classic 1931 film Dracula by Universal Pictures. However, his Hungarian accent led to him being typecast in horror roles, and he was restricted to minor parts in films. Lugosi became a morphine and methadone addict, and he died in Los Angeles, California in 1956 at the age of 73.